I was tucked away in bed getting ready to fall asleep when something in my head said, “Look over your news feed one more time.” I grabbed my phone, hit Facebook and scrolled through updates when I saw a friend post something about “KONY”. Unfamiliar with it, I decided to click on it and find out what the late night fuss was about when I was directed to a 30 minute video titled “KONY 2012” (below). God knows at 1:30 in the morning I had no plans to watch a 30 minute video on my phone but I gave it a chance. Unsure of the point of the film, I waited and waited and then like a ton of bricks I got the message loud and clear:

MAKE KONY FAMOUS!

The Background.
In the 30 minute film, you’re given access to activism at its finest. Director Jason Russell (right) introduces you to the unthinkable 26 year-long crime in Uganda carried out by Joseph Kony (above) and his rebel group the Lord Resistance Army (L.R.A.). Under Kony’s dictatorship, the army has kidnapped and brainwashed over 30,000 children, turning girls into sex slaves and boys into child soldiers who are forced to mutilate people’s faces and kill their own parents. Kony’s violent impact to the people of Uganda has been so severe that he is currently #1 on the International Criminal Court list of the world’s worst criminals based on the severity of his crimes. To bring it all home, Jason shows his friendship with a Ugandan teen named Jacob and the detrimental impact the L.R.A has had on his life. Jason promises to find a way to bring down Kony. That promise developed into an organization which Jason co-founded called Invisible Children and global movement known as KONY 2012.

KONY 2012

The Dilemma.
If more people in the world vocalized their desire to have Kony stopped, he would have been arrested by now. Even though the U.S. government is aware of Kony, they’ve remained at a distance to some degree since “our national security or interest is not at stake”. But human life is at stake. Think about this happening to your little siblings, cousins, children, or even you pet being abducted and placed in the same conditions as these kids. When the roles are switched and the scenario affects you, it becomes a problem. Jason explains it effortlessly by saying, “Where you live shouldn’t determine whether you live”. No longer waiting on the government, Individual Children and its supporters have made great strides to advance and protect Ugandan communities by building schools, creating jobs, and installing radio networks to update them in preparation for an attack. But it hasn’t been enough because Kony is remains and can still abduct children and kill innocent people. The only way to send troops into Uganda with the technology and equipment necessary to find and arrest Kony we must show that we want him to be stopped.

The Deal.
The only way to send troops to Uganda is to spread the word by joining the KONY 2012 global movement. I am beyond awestruck by this movement. With ‘life’ as the motivator of the campaign, KONY 2012 is a perfectly crafted global marketing campaign that some of the biggest brands couldn’t design let alone receive such engagement for people. It’s marketing and advertising that weaves into viral, grassroots, guerrilla, experiential, word of mouth, promotion, mobile, print, sales, non-profit, and interactive avenues. Invisible Children has hit it on the head in every medium and it is possibly the best of its kind. In its totality, this campaign has created a movement that has the potential to define a generation, end injustice, and rehabilitate lives.

Your Part.
In order to arrest Kony, you must show that you want him arrested by voicing your opinion. What makes this unique is that Invisible Children is asking you to make Kony famous in order to bring him down. While Invisible Children is targeting culture and policy makers like musicians, celebrities, and political figures to bring him down you can spread the word to your friends. In the hyper social media world that we live in today, you are an update, tweet, and hash tag away from getting the Kony message out to more people. Even better is that you can spread the movement everywhere you go by purchasing posters ($5, above) or the Kony 2012 Action Kit ($30) through the Invisible Children Store. The kit includes posters, stickers, buttons, a t-shirt and a Kony bracelet(left). All the work executed by the organization, myself, and of course you will come together one night in April.

Cover the Night Event.
On Friday April 20th, 2012 Invisible Children wants everyone to blanket every street in every city at sundown in the Cover the Night Event (below). As the world goes to sleep, supporters will stay out throughout the night covering their city with Kony paraphernalia so the world wakes up to their city standing up for a cause. This movement plans to create a flash mob, but realistically a flash mob is what you see in Times Square when Gap wants to show off their work out pants via dance. Instead I like to think of what the Invisible Children plan to do as a Blazing Horde!!! It will use as many people as possible to demand attention, action, justice all to make Kony famous.

Do It.
Kony must be made known worldwide and every blog post, status update, tweet, or conversation helps. If you can voice your opinion about your political beliefs or take a picture of your dinner, then you most certainly can devote your voice to make Kony famous.

Watch the film, become a part of the movement, and spread the word. I know I have and I will!

Today marks the 100th birthday of Oreo cookies. That’s 100 years of twisting, licking, dunking, and chowing down on Nabisco’s tuxedo style sandwich cookie. To bring in the big day in a big way, Oreo is encouraging the world to make their life a little less serious and “celebrate the kid inside” of them. To do so, Oreo is creating exciting moments around the world through large scale events. Oreo events include a flash mob with a performance by Lady Antebellum at The Grove in LA, fireworks at China’s Shanghai Bund, an Oreo inspired playground in Indonesia, a piñata party in Venezuela, and so much more. If you’re unable to make it to one of the events, you can still participate online. Over the net, Oreo is letting you send a bag of cookies to someone you love, share your own Oreo photos, play in the Oreo Arcade, and so much more. To keep along with the tagline, you can even go to Oreo’s Facebook page and share your own story about how you let your inner child shine. With the “Million Moments Meter”, Oreo tracks all the memorable moments submitted so the entire world can share in all the great Oreo moments people have. It’s a big birthday for the cookie and having events both live and online is a great year to get the celebration in swing!

It’s award season and this year the award for best pre, during, and post advertising and marketing has to go to Chevrolet for all the work it did for its new Sonic. To introduce the new Sonic to the world, Chevrolet (owned by General Motors) created the Let’s Do This campaign that would show off the vehicles greatest features in extreme elements perfectly. The brains behind the brand and its San Francisco agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners (GSP) did just that—stunts. Such conditions included a 360 degree kick flip, bungee jumping, sky diving, creating an original music video, and a commercial put together just in time for the Super Bowl.

Sky Dive

Before many people knew much about the Sonic, Chevy made the executive decision to get your adrenaline running in preparation for the vehicle. Over the Arizona desert the Sonic was catapulted out of a plane went from 0 to 60mph in 0.4 seconds. Granted, seeing as we don’t get to monitor the speedometer it’s hard to confirm that. However, what you do see is the Sonic on an adventure that many people wish to take themselves. The underlying theme remains that with the Sonic, “the sky is the limit”.

Chevy Sonic “Sky Dive”

Bungee Jump

To create an interactive and viral initiative for the Sonic, Chevy went to GSP, Synn Labs, and Motion Theory. In Long Beach, the companies created the Bungee Jump which placed a Sonic atop of a 90 foot tall container structure. Engineered by the power of Facebook, followers of the Chevy Sonic’s Facebook page could like the initiative to launch it off the platform. 9 hours and 2.5 million clicks later the car was propelled off the containers and the rest was exactly what you would expect: a car bungee jump.

Chevy Sonic “Bungee Jump”

Sonic Kick Flip

On December 17 Jeff Goodby of GSP alongside his team executed another event for the Sonic. Chevy pulled pro skater Rob Dyrdek to apply his talents to the Sonic at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, CA. Since the pro stunt man has a keen eye for adventure and an old school love for all things Chevy, the relationship was a done deal. Kevin Mayer, director of Chevrolet advertising and sales promotion explained: “With his outrageous personality and his willingness to try any adventure once, Rob Dyrdek was the perfect match for the Sonic and our ‘Let’s Do This’ campaign,”. During the event, Rob effortlessly pulled off a 360 degree rotation over the world’s largest skateboard in front of an audience. Both Rob and the car landed safely and in that moment the best kick flip was made. To add to the publicity of the event, the flip was filmed for the season five premiere of Dyrdek’s “Fantasy Factory”.

To read everything about the event, check out the press release behind it.

Further building into the campaign that Chevy created for the 2012 Sonic comes three additional portions. Starting with…

The World’s Largest Claw Game

Executing pieces of the campaign in Arizona and Long Beach, the Sonic’s next part took place at The Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood. Coined as “The World’s Largest Claw Game”, the game was exactly what the title conveys. Conceived in 2010, the game was inspired by the old school games that you find in grocery stores and arcade joints. As the world’s largest interactive 3D projection, participants had the chance play the game by pressing the gas pedal control and a joystick in the shape of the gear shift. Players could win any prize they grabbed including anything from an HD camera to an actual Sonic. The beauty of the game is that “when someone grabs the car and wins it in the digital world….it goes through this prize shoot and comes out the bottom of the building [is] a real live Chevy Sonic.” This game is amazing because it takes the Sonic directly to its potential consumers, gives people the chance to interact with the product, and lets them win exciting prizes!

Chevy Sonic: The World’s Largest Claw Game

OK GO Music Video

With work on the virtual and interactive side on deck, the Sonic’s next maneuver was to create a musical initiative. Working with the Grammy award winning Chicago band OK Go for their song “Needing/Getting” the boys went to make a music video where they sang the music while the Sonic played the instruments. Driving on top of keys, banging on the piano, and strumming guitars the Sonic appears to be a musical genius. The best part of this is that you can download the song for free. Thanks Chevy, you exactly what I want!

“OK Go – Needing/Getting – Official Video”

Super BowlCommercial
The final piece to the campaign is the 2012 Super Bowl XLVI commercial that pieced together the prominent components of the Let’s Do This campaign. In the 1 minute spot, Chevy gives you the best parts to its campaign on top of the track “We Are Young” by Fun. ft. Janelle Monae. I actually only found out about this song thanks to Chevy (thank you by the way) and I absolutely love it! It’s a perfect anthem to narrate the stunts and an even better addition to my iTunes library.

While brands in this year’s Super Bowl will vie for your attention by creating humorous, poignant, or shocking ads one of the best ways to keep you glued is to create an ad with an unforgettable spokesperson. H&M is already doing this with David Beckham and the launch of his new bodywear line, but two other brands are hopping on the sexy bandwagon with the same spokesmodel. As the hottest Victoria’s Secret supermodel, the Brazilian beauty Adriana Lima will have double duty working for both Kia Motors and Teleflora.

Creating a commercial for Kia Motors, El Segundo, CA agency David&Goliath created a commercial that brings your dream to life. Whether you know it, that dream is a smorgasbord with the beautiful Adriana Lima, Mötley Crüe, UFC fighter Chuck Liddell, a giant sub, random and unidentifiable hot chicks, and of course a souped up Kia Optima. The initial teaser for the commercial is definitely one that gets you wanting more, but when you see the full length 60 second spot you’ll realize it was worth the wait. And if you felt slightly jipped by only getting to see Adriana for a few seconds, fret no more. Kia gives you more than you could have hoped by slowing down Adriana’s portion in the commercial to a whole 5 hours. Who needs time for extracurricular activities when you can watch Adriana in the best picture quality over and over and over and over and over…

Adriana Lima “Big Game” Kia Optima Tease

Kia’s “A Dream Car for Real Life”

“5 Hours of Adriana Lima in 1080P”

For her second gig during the Super Bowl Adriana works with Teleflora’s in house agency, Fire Station. In the 30 second piece, Adriana reminds viewers that although it’s all about football right now, Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching. What better to sell flowers, the highest selling Valentine’s Day related product, then with a woman who exudes passion and sensuality. It’s like having Aphrodite promote chocolate: it’s a no brainer. In the commercial, Adriana helps you out and gives the best piece of advice: “Guys, Valentine’s Day is not that complicated. Give and you shall receive”. You and your mind can take that sentence any which way you want but the overall idea: give your loved one Teleflora flowers and you’ll receive what you want.

If you’ve made the old U.S. Army slogan, “Be all That You Can Be”, a mantra to how you live your life then it’s time for you to change it up. Why? Because being the best isn’t enough. At least that’s what Kobe Bryant is telling you in his new KobeSystem campaign. If you happen to know what the view at the top truly looks like, where do you go from there? Kobe says you go further. Created for the release of Nike’s Kobe VII ($180) by the Portland based integrated advertising agency Weiden+Kennedy, they bundled the system into a 14 piece set. In the TV and digital, commercial and interview videos you get to see the amusing KobeSystem, hear testimonials, and watch the Laker ballergod coach the hyper successful on how to be better than what is considered the best.

In the audience of the high achievers are Kaye West (musician), Richard Branson (business magnate, Virgin Group), Serena Williams (athlete), Aziz Ansari (comedian), and a slew of others. Sitting on pins and needles, they absorb the ideas behind the system: that with the shoes on you’ll find that “if you attack fast and strong you can become abnormally successful”. With that at your discretion, all that is left to do is follow the fundamentals of his level system:

If you don’t understand it, maybe it’s because you haven’t passed success yet. If you do understand it and you own a pair of Kobe VIIs, by all means follow the system and embrace success’ success for the rest of us. Don’t forget, when you continue to surpass it you have Kobe and his system to thank. You’re welcome.

If it’s January then you know award season is coming up. Whether it’s the Grammy’s, The Emmys, or The Academy Awards celebs and musicians are vying for the prize to validate what they’ve done in the past 12 months. Some of which were only questionable at best. In a less in your face arena, the advertising world comes with its own prize. Advertising Age’s Agency of the Year awards carry as much esteem as an Oscar, but for the type of badass contenders you’d find at The Grammys.

Why do these awards matter? Because it comes from the longest standing advertising publication that says who’s who in the league. While there may not be an audience of fans screaming an agency’s name, receiving the title makes an agency gold and makes a brand take a second look at them.

It would be easy to drop a list of names, but what does that mean to someone unfamiliar to the agency? Instead, from SLTF you’ll get a list of the winners, some of their clients, what people are saying about them, and snapshot of their work.

Founded: 1946Clients: Dell, The Hersey Company, Jack Daniel’s, Progressive, Sprint, VolvoTalk That Talk: “They understand my philosophy of out-create, not outspend. I’m a big believer in letting these guys be a part of the culture. They are in every meeting we have…. I treat them as part of my extended staff.” —Jeff Charney, CMO of ProgressiveDouble Take: Not too shabby…

Founded: 1999Clients: HBO Go, Nintendo, Pizza Hut, Svedka (Vodka), Time Warner, UnileverTalk That Talk: “They’re working with us to map out the entire user experience in how the HBO brand is represented on all these devices — connected TV, web and mobile — so it’s a consistent experience. The first TV app launched late last year on Roku. The apps will soon be available on Xbox and Samsung TVs and Blu-ray players.” —Hans Deutmeyer, VP at HBO Go and Max GoDouble Take: Pepsi Refresh Project dedicated $20 million in donations to local organizations.

Founded: 1917Clients: 3M, DirecTV, DQ (Dairy Queen), E*Trade, NFL, VolkswagenTalk That Talk: Jon Gieselman, Senior VP-Marketing at DirecTV, considers Grey’s work “great pieces of creative”, specifically the “Don’t just watch TV, DirecTV,” campaign that won a Lion at Cannes.Double Take: OBAMCCAIN (2008) The idea, “Remind people that if they are voting for either candidate because of the color of his skin, they are voting for the wrong reason.” The result, “Election Day: 37 million people have seen the image, at a cost of zero media dollars.”

Founded: 1994Clients: McDonalds, Rosetta Stone, Pepsi, PNC, Polar Beer, State Farm,Talk That Talk: “I love the mango-pineapple smoothie work,” said Neil Golden, CMO of McDonald’s USA. “It’s beautiful and insightful. We ran it in Spanish-language media and also extensively in English-language.”Double Take: Love the sentiment in this commercial for McDonald’s.